


Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of Your Fist

by prizewinningfruitcake



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: And Gets One, Anders Needs a Hug, Character Study, F/M, Kirkwall (Dragon Age), Mage Rebellion, Mage-Templar War, Platonic Relationships, The Chantry (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 15:37:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16746748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prizewinningfruitcake/pseuds/prizewinningfruitcake
Summary: Warden Tabris and Anders have a few matters to discuss post The Last Straw





	Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of Your Fist

Halsa hasn’t spoken in a long time. Neither has he, Anders supposes, but he wonders if she’s angry with him.

She defended him. He’ll never forget that. He’ll never forget the silence, the wails that pierced it; he’ll never forget the boot he saw with a bone sticking out of it. The pained look on Hawke’s face, heartbroken as he drew his dagger. _So it’s come to this._ Pragmatic, that’s just how Garrett is. He’ll always wonder if he really would have done it.

And Halsa stepped in front of him. “Wait,” she said, and she didn’t have to speak loudly. She never has. “Let me take him.”

“Where?” Hawke demanded. “What are you going to do? Is there an un-possession expert I’m unaware of?”

“I know someone who can help.”

Hawke put a hand through his hair, a nervous habit Anders knows well, more forceful the more upset he is and this time it looked like he aimed to peel his scalp off. 

“Not Flemeth,” he said.

“Enough of this.” Fenris’ sword was in his hand, and Sebastian rose from his knees to join him. Weapons pointed at him, and he’ll never forget their expressions. 

Halsa didn’t budge. “We can talk all day, but if any of you steps up, you’re taking me on.”

None of them did care to fight the Hero of Ferelden. So here they are, two days’ journey from Kirkwall, sweating sticky in the humid evening. Cloaks discarded because they attract more attention with them on in this heat.

“Camp over in those trees?” she asks. 

He nods, forcing her to look at him for confirmation. 

He’s left everything behind. If he’s lucky, someone will think to stop by the clinic to pick up his grimoire and notes. If anyone thinks of him and cares to do him any kindness. If anyone back there is still alive after what he’s done.

There are still screams echoing in his ears. Terrible things running through his thoughts. Hawke, already scarred and hobbled, going against all those Templars. Varric with his chest exposed like a lunatic. He left them all behind and there’ll be no one to heal them. He’s so tired, breath catching as he stakes his tent, tears dropping onto the canvas. Choked, he coughs and lowers his head. Halsa’s not far from him, gathering firewood, and she shouldn’t see. 

Something poking his lower back causes him to start. 

“What’s the matter?”

He turns to find Halsa holding a stick.

Anders wipes his eyes with his sleeve, turning to face her fully. “More than one thing, really,” he says, and presses the back of his hand to his damp forehead. 

Halsa doesn’t respond to that. She breaks the stick over her knee and squats to arrange her kindling. 

“Are you angry with me?” he asks.

“No,” she replies right away without looking up.

That can’t be true. She’s dropped everything for him. She left her company to help him, to help Kirkwall, and he…

“Why _not_?” he says, more forceful than he meant to.

She shrugs. “Why should I? It was coming for a long time. I knew that.” She looks up, expectant, and points at her arrangement of twigs.

“Isn’t it hot enough?” he says.

“It’ll be cooler once it’s dark. And I’ll need it to cook.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You’re going to cook?”

“I don’t see you volunteering.”

He acquiesces, sparking the tinder, coaxing flames upward. Satisfied, Halsa lays a log in the middle and moves to rummage in her pack. Anders settles on a stump and loosens the top buttons of his shirt.

The fire makes him nervous. Surely there are Templars after them. He keeps an eye on the path, twitches at every sound, but there’s hardly even birdsong or leaves rustling; time seems slowed here, somehow, the air thick and heavy. The dull thud Halsa’s pot makes when she sets it in the fire is louder than it should be.

“Aren’t we attracting attention?” he asks, breaking another long silence.

Halsa leans forward and stirs the porridge. “Maker’s tits, we can put it out as soon as I’m finished.”

“I just - we should be careful, that’s all.”

“We _are_ being careful.”

She leaves the pot on longer than necessary, he thinks. After she’s spooned out two bowls and handed one to him, she offers to make tea and laughs at the glare he gives her. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. It’s good to have something in his stomach.

Setting his bowl aside, he says, “I don’t know why you’re doing this for me.”

“Feeding you?”

“No,” he huffs. “Helping me.” She defended him, stepped in front of him. His eyes sting and he looks away. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Why not?” She frowns at him. 

He gestures, two open palms. “I just...killed a lot of people,” he says, but the words feel wrong, inadequate.

Halsa frowns deeper, her hand on her chin. “We’ve all killed people.”

“But I-” he breaks off, frustrated. “You’re being obtuse. I’ve...fucked everything up. I lost control of myself. I just - I just started a war, I think.”

“Move over.” She gets up and he makes room for her to sit next to him. Her head doesn’t quite reach his shoulder, but the hand she places on his back is steadying.

“I don’t think Hawke will ever forgive me,” he says, a thought he hadn’t quite formed and didn’t quite mean to say aloud.

“Fuck him,” Halsa says.

“I thought you liked Hawke.”

“He’s fun to drink with,” she shrugs, “but he needed to get off his arse. Things don’t change unless you make them change. You know that.”

He does, and he’s said it so many times. To Hawke, to everyone.

“What’s Justice think?” she says.

He instinctively puts a hand to his chest as if feeling for some sign of the spirit. “I don’t know,” he says. “It’s all been very still since...” 

Halsa hums understanding. “I miss Justice.”

“Me too.”

Tentatively, he rests his cheek on the top of her head. This is awkward; she is Warden Tabris - formerly Warden _Commander_ Tabris, who carries a huge rock tied to a stick as a weapon. She isn’t much for hugs, he knows, but she wraps an arm around his waist.

“Thank you,” he says. “I needed that.”

“Well, prodding you with a stick didn’t help.” She gives him a squeeze and reclaims her arm.

“So where are we going?” he asks.

Halsa claps him on the back and stands back up. “I thought you weren’t going to ask,” she says, and digs into her bag for a map. “We’ll need to take ship once we can find a good spot,” she continues, smoothing it out on the ground.

“Ferelden?” he asks, and she points to the shape of it, to the very south. The Wilds. “Flemeth?”

“Not quite,” Halsa says. “I have business with a relative of hers.”

“Hmm,” he mutters over her shoulder.

She looks at him, big dark eyes, hard but forthright. “You don’t have to come with me. I’m not your commander anymore. It’s not an order.”

How long has it been since he first met her? Since she conscripted him out from under Rylock? She told him he was worth it. She told him she was on his side.

“I’ll go with you,” he says. “I trust you.”


End file.
